Sunday, May 3, 2009

A Dark Side

My friends know I'm a GG Allin fan. When he was alive we used to write and talk on the phone when time permitted. He even asked my joke of a band, JFK's Head, to open for him and the Murder Junkies. We turned him down.

GG, despite his many faults, always appealed to me because he represented the dark side that is present in us all. The ego out of control. The reptile. What you saw is what you got. He was violence personified, and I can respect that.

Many think Ozzy or Marilyn Manson are the top of the outrageous chain, but GG had them beat. No comparison really. Ozzy and Manson scare parents. GG scared everyone else. There's something very appealing about that.

A few months ago at my job there was a noise that sounded like a pistol being fired. People wondered what it was. A unit over someone said, not knowing that I was listening, that they thought I was shooting someone. To that, another worker replied, "No, Doug would bring in an AK 47."

That unpredictable nature, that sense of violence, the never knowing when things can go south is what makes us feel alive. It's what makes us get in touch with our primal nature. I've never heard another artist that even comes close to that. GG, backed by any one of his numerous bands, does that for me. "I will not act civilized," he once sang.

Thank God for that, because civilization is nothing more than a bunch of brainless sheep, and we all know what happens to them.